


The Sun And Other Lovely, Lonely Stars Like You

by LandOfMistAndSecrets



Series: (Octopath) Tumblr Prompt Fills & Ficlets (NSFW) [1]
Category: Octopath Traveler (Video Game)
Genre: Angst and Porn, M/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, pre-game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-15
Updated: 2018-09-15
Packaged: 2019-07-12 20:16:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16002515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LandOfMistAndSecrets/pseuds/LandOfMistAndSecrets
Summary: There are two Erhardts in Olberic's mind, and try as he might, he just can't consolidate them.(Set after the fall of Hornburg, but well before the events of the game.)





	The Sun And Other Lovely, Lonely Stars Like You

He woke up tangled in his bedsheets, breathing hard. For several long seconds, he forgot where he was entirely. Forgot the awful things that had happened, the humiliation he had endured and the hopelessness he struggled with still. The austere walls of his lodgings were not so unlike those of the old royal barracks, and if he closed his eyes, he could almost hear the murmured voices of his fellow knights through the stone. 

If he tried, he could trick himself into smelling the musty scent of old leather and sweat, into feeling the heat of another body close beside his. He could ghost his fingertips over his chest and pretend they belonged to another, chasing images from his rapidly fading dreams to prolong the fantasy. Long blonde locks and fierce green eyes, burning into his. A pretty mouth upturned into an amused smirk, pleased to see how Olberic's body responded so eagerly to even his lightest touch. 

He opened his eyes, and the fantasy evaporated. The early morning light that shone through his window was too pale, too muted by mountain fog. The air there was too thin, too cool, and he shivered and drew the blankets around him, willing his body to free itself of the dream's pressing temptations. Hornburg was gone, and all of his fellow knights were dead. 

All save one. 

Erhardt's face was there whenever his eyes closed, seared into the back of his eyelids, and whether hot or cold, those eyes were always burning. Olberic threw an arm over his face with a pitiful groan, caught as always between two ghosts. One was the Erhardt he knew, shining bright like a living avatar of the summer sun, quick to anger and to action and to passion, most of all. The other was the Erhardt who had betrayed him and their king and their kingdom, a cold burning star, pale faced and silent, moving in rote mechanical motion with no indication that he could or indeed ever had felt anything resembling human emotion all. 

One was the man he would have died for, once, his other half, and the other was the traitor who had taken everything from him but his life. 

It was difficult still to think of them as the same person. 

They had slept often in beds much like this -- too thin, too small. Olberic would lay awake, heart pounding, waiting into the small hours to hear the metal latch turn, the soft _click_ of his door, admitting Erhardt into his quarters. He had always been so pleased to see Olberic awake and eager, anticipating his arrival. Erhardt had always reveled in the knowledge that there was no excuse to give if they were found together in that place, at that hour. He had enjoyed knowing that no matter how deft and depraved his treatment of him, Olberic had no choice but to contain his gasps and cries to whispers as best he could, lest they both be caught and suffer the consequences of their liasons.

Olberic groaned, softly, turning his face into his pillow. This was why he could not reconcile the two Erhardts in his mind. One he adored, the other he despised, and how could the two be the same? 

His body clung still to the dream, his nerves all alight with just the memory of those eyes, arresting him so easily while his fingers traced a line down his chest. Olberic followed the memorized motion of it with his own hand, his burning face turned to one side. He should not encourage this, should certainly not _indulge_ in it, but he knew this as well: if he stood up now, if he went to rinse himself in cold water and cooled the heat in his belly to something more manageable, it would all be back again when he woke the next morning. 

_He is a traitor,_ he reminded himself, as he teased the curls of thick hair beneath his navel with his fingertips, just as Erhardt had often done. _He murdered your king,_ he thought, jaw clenched, as his member throbbed with heat and want. _He destroyed your home._ He rocked his hips up and opened his legs, imagining Erhardt settling on his knees between them, pressing his knees insistently apart. _Let me see you,_ Erhardt would whisper, his eyes taking on a faeish glitter in the dark, and Olberic would remove his smallclothes eagerly for him, reveling in the way that glorious green visage drank him in.

He lay there, panting softly, exposed to the air, imagining the ghost of Erhardt's breath on him, teasing him. He had taken _everything_ , and even here in the numb, empty after, the man returned in dreams and memories to rob him of his dignity, again and again. The things they had done that he had once cherished so had become nightmares unto themselves, but the sick feeling in his stomach did nothing to banish the cursed _heat._

Only one thing ever had, ever could. He wrapped a hand around himself, imagining another at work, fantasizing about fingers that were longer, more slender, but no more relenting in their grip. _Such a lovely cock,_ Erhardt would tease him, stroking a breathtaking rhythm, coaxing his hips to rock desperately up into his fist. _Shall I show you mine? I think I should like to see you service me with more than your clumsy hands. No, come now, don't deny it. Besides, you would love to taste me, wouldn't you, Olberic? Or is it instruction that you lack?_

His breath came shorter, shallower, his eyes squeezed shut as he played through the memory. Erhardt dipping his beautiful face down, running first his thumb and then his tongue over the head of his eager cock, warm and wet over the sensitive slit at the tip. Erhardt, chuckling softly, making a thoughtful sound that passed through his lips and buzzed against Olberic's oversensitive skin. Erhardt locking his eyes with Olberic's and licking slowly down the shaft, gripping the base of him with fingers that squeezed in slow, tortuous rhythm. _Are you paying attention?_ he would tease, while Olberic moaned quietly, canting his hips, his mouth already watering with anticipation of the upcoming reversal. 

Had it all meant nothing to him? Had it all just been a game, all the while? Had he known, while he laved his perfect tongue around his cock and drove him wild with desire that these once cherished memories would one day torture him relentlessly? 

Had that been the entire point? 

He groaned, just as quietly as he had back then, stroking himself even as the questions fluttered through his mind. A familiar tightness built low in his belly, making his breath catch and his body squirm. Beads of moisture gathered at the very tip of his cock, and his mind helpfully supplied the imagine of Erhardt's tongue lapping it eagerly off him. He followed the imagined motion of his tongue with the pad of this thumb, circling, stroking, spreading the slick moisture over himself with his fingers. 

The heat in his gut flared unbearably, and he clamped his free hand over his mouth, panting and moaning desperately into his palm. He imagined Erhardt's low, appreciative chuckle. Remembered the way he would pull his face and hands both away, leaving him slick and straining and wild with need. The way he would lick his lips and toss his hair back, the way his fingers would shake just slightly as he undid the ties on his breeches. _Olberic,_ he would say, as his cock sprung free of its confinement, thick and long and perfect. _Behold,_ Erhardt would declare in exclaimed whispers, while Olberic covered his eyes and begged him to stop, _the Twin Blades of Hornburg!_

And they would laugh and snort and do their best to keep it quiet, _quiet_ , no one could know. Erhardt would beckon him over, and he would swallow his protests and crawl forward, obedient on his hands and knees, anticipating everything to come. Erhardt would run his beautiful fingers through Olberic's sweat-damp hair, so sweetly, at first. Then his grip would tighten and he would pull him forward by the hair and shift his hips up. _Please me,_ he would say, _and perhaps I'll finish you off before I go._

An empty threat, though the words never failed to drive desperate heat deep into his core. Some nights, Erhardt didn't bother to go at all, electing to sleep some few hours beside him and slip out in the early morning, instead. And besides -- Erhardt's cock in his mouth, his fingers painfully tight in his hair, his soft gasps and muttered curses and low moans -- these things had taken him over the edge just as often as anything else. The mere memory of them took him over easily even now. He bit his own fist to muffle the sounds he made as he spilled over his fingers and painted his own chest and stomach, biting his tongue to keep himself from whispering Erhardt's name like a desperate, twisted plea. 

When it was done, the tension gone and the desire with it, he collapsed onto his back and closed his eyes, guilt and despair welling up in equal measure. 

The man had taken everything from him, king and country and purpose, and still what hurt the most was wondering -- had any part of his feelings ever been genuine? Had anything they'd done ever, even for a moment, given him pause on his inevitable, traitorous course? 

Had there been some missed opportunity, some night spent pressed together and murmuring of their histories and their dreams and their desires, where Olberic could have said something that might have changed his mind? 

He lay there, cold and empty and sticky with the evidence of his own shame. These desperate thoughts spun in circles through his mind, and beneath them, the most pressing and poisonous of them all: Wherever he was, did Erhardt ever lay awake, tortured this way by the memory of all the things they'd shared? When he touched himself, did he imagine Olberic's hands, his mouth, his body? 

And if so, which of them was more the fool? 

_Ah, Gods! Gods, Olberic, you're always so good to me. Look at you. Look at us. We make a fine pair, do we not?_

Impossible to know. Better not to wonder. 

If only he were capable of letting go.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written in response to a prompt received on my blog, which you can find on Tumblr here: [@sealticge](http://sealticge.tumblr.com)


End file.
